Selling knew then that he would not be going home.
Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost, to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!
–STATUE OF LIBERTY INSCRIPTION
by nineteenth-century Jewish poet Emma Lazarus
For nearly twelve years, Günther Stern had the best of childhoods.
He spent those idyllic days in Hildesheim, one of the oldest and most picturesque towns in northern Germany, built along the windswept banks of the Innerste River and surrounded by rolling hills dotted with farms, dairies, and grazing livestock. The town’s cobblestone streets were lined by centuries-old, spire-topped buildings and churches.
Reaching skyward as it climbed up the sides of the Hildesheim Cathedral’s apse was a thirty-five-foot dog rose reputed to be the world’s oldest living rosebush. It was nearly the same age as the town, which is how it got its name: Tausendjähriger Rosenstock (“Thousand-Year Rose”). According to local legend, as the pink-blossomed rose flourished, so did the town.
Since its earliest days, Hildesheim had been the seat of a Roman Catholic archbishop, and for centuries the majority of its residents were Catholic. After the Reformation, which had its roots in Germany, many Catholics turned Protestant (mostly Lutheran), and by the 1930s, Hildesheim’s sixty-five thousand inhabitants were divided between the two major Christian religions. There were fewer than a thousand Jews in the town, which mirrored their representation nationally. A June 1933 census found less than one percent of Germany’s population was Jewish: roughly a half million Jews out of 67 million people.
When Jews settled in Hildesheim early in the seventeenth century, they built half-timbered houses with ornate wood-carved façades. The town’s Moorish-style synagogue was built on Lappenberg Street in 1849, an area that became one of Hildesheim’s most scenic neighborhoods.
Günther was a bright and inquisitive boy. He had his mother’s sunny disposition, his father’s intelligent eyes, and unruly ears that refused to lay flat. Born in 1922, he made his first visit to synagogue at age six, when his parents took him for services on a High Holiday. For once, the boy hadn’t complained about being dressed in his best clothes. His mother had told him how important it was to make a good first impression on the Lord. They walked with other families to the synagogue, all dressed in their finest. Smiling passersby stepped aside, nodding to the Jewish procession as it passed, the men lifting their top hats in greeting, again and again.
Günther, the eldest child of Julius and Hedwig Stern, was four years older than his brother, Werner, and twelve years older than his sister, Eleonore. The family was solidly middle class, as were most of Hildesheim’s Jews. The Sterns lived in a rented apartment abutting Günther’s father’s small fabric store, which was located on the third floor of a well-maintained building near a bustling marketplace in the center of town. The apartment had high ceilings and good light. Fine curtains draped the tall windows. Each room had a wood-burning stove for heat, and the kitchen was outfitted with a modern stove.
The two boys shared a room on one side of the apartment. Their parents’ bedroom, where their little sister also slept, was at the other end. The bedrooms had hardwood floors; the carpeted living room had a sofa, two upholstered chairs, and Julius’s dark wood desk. The formal dining room, with a pastoral landscape by the Austrian artist Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller on the wall, was reserved for special occasions. Günther and his brother’s favorite part of the house was a tile-floored vestibule that served as an indoor playground, complete with a Ping-Pong table that they put to regular use.
Günther’s father was a slight man known for his boundless energy. Julius Stern worked six-and-a-half-day weeks, taking off only Saturday mornings to attend synagogue, where the sermon was in German and the service in Hebrew. He showed fabric samples and took orders in his store and on trips to outlying villages, where he called on customers who made their own clothing. The only ready-to-wear clothes he sold were men’s gabardine overcoats. His wife, Hedwig (née Silberberg), did his typing and billing. A raven-haired woman with dark, soulful eyes, Hedwig had a gift for writing witty limericks featuring relatives and friends.
Günther began his education in a one-room Jewish school. His teacher met the challenge of keeping students of varying ages and grade levels interested and engaged throughout the school day. None of it was lost on Günther, and he blossomed as a serious reader and an excellent student. Günther also enjoyed attending a Saturday afternoon youth group conducted by the synagogue’s charismatic young cantor, Josef Cysner, who led lively discussions about Jewish books and culture.
As was customary, Günther entered Andreas-Oberrealschule at age ten, in 1932. He was one of three Jews among his incoming class of twenty students. Even before starting school, Günther had had many non-Jewish friends; in Hildesheim at the time, young gentiles and Jews easily assimilated. They visited one another’s homes, attended the same parties, bicycled and swam together, and played soccer in the same athletic clubs.
But in 1933, the Nazis came into power, and they immediately started passing restrictive new laws targeting Jews. Hitler pledged to transform the nation: “Give me ten years,” he promised prophetically that year, “and you won’t recognize Germany.”
On April 1, 1933, two months after Hitler became chancellor, the government called for a twenty-four-hour nationwide boycott of Jewish-owned businesses. Storm troopers stood in front of stores, denouncing the proprietors and blocking the entrances. Jude was smeared on store windows; stars of David were painted across doorways. Local boycotts of Jewish businesses spread throughout Germany. Nazis marched through the streets, shouting anti-Jewish slurs; oftentimes these processions were accompanied by arrests, beatings, and extensive property damage.
Like many Jewish proprietors, Julius gradually lost most of his non-Jewish customers. They were afraid to be seen coming and going from his store; when he went to call on them at their homes, he was greeted by signs that read: JUDEN IST DER EINTRITT VERBOTEN. (Jews are forbidden entry.)
At the time, Günther, though an inveterate newspaper reader, had only a partial understanding of what was taking place in Germany. But he noticed when his friends became slow to greet him and then stopped speaking to him altogether. He found himself being invited to fewer birthday parties, and he was soon banned—along with the other Jewish youth of Hildesheim—from swimming at the local pool and playing on his soccer team. Even his athletic club eventually kicked him out; though he had accumulated enough participation points to earn a medal, he was not awarded it. These were formative years for Günther, and it hurt him deeply to realize he had become an outcast among his peers.
